‘Committee limited in carrying out its roles’
THE Public Accounts Committee is limited in carrying out its role, said Opposition MP Aseri Radrodro during the review of the 2017-2018 whole of government audit reports consolidated report compiled by the public accounts committee in Parliament yesterday.
“The committee was limited in carrying out its roles and was resigned to requesting responses from government ministries and departments,” Mr Radrodro said.
“Instead of conducting face to face interviews and making visitations so that the public account committees are not misled into believing what has been provided to us on face value, what has been observed during the public accounts committee review of whole of government report is that in most instances the auditor general is continuously highlighting similar issues that were assured by the permanent secretaries of various ministries and departments during previous interviews to have resolved or attended to.
“When these incidents keep recurring in the auditor general’s report, in this report, previous reports and future reports, it signifies that the government processes may have a weak control system which often questions whether the right people are holding the positions in the various entities.”
Mr Radrodro added that the government reform system was not achieving its intended purpose.
“One can only imagine the bizarre results that the Government ministries and departments are achieving during this reform period as highlighted in this auditor general’s report. The auditor general gave a qualified audit opinion on this whole of Government report, that is not a good sign.
“Government cannot be allowed to compromise the services it is expected to give to the people of Fiji when reforms introduced is creating more confusion than good.”